District Feasibility/Potential
 

It seems almost certain that eventually FIRST will evolve into practically everywhere using the District Model or something similar so how do you think it would work in your State/Province/Region/Country? Would you include other areas other then the obvious? Is it feasible now? If not how long do you think it would take for it to be?

So I will start with Florida:
Florida has 76 teams over 53,926.82 square miles meaning we have one team for every 709 square miles (Compared to Michigan prior to 2009 had one FRC team per 604 square miles). So according to basic math we aren't that far behind population density wise.

So If we were to have 5 District Events, Plus Championship (Same as MAR in 2012) I think they would be located in:

Miami (A large city with many teams already, and still more could develop)

Orlando (Home of the original Florida Regional, and also a lot of teams in the area)

Palm Beach County (Yes this is where my team is from but it makes sence with the selection of Miami for a district that keeping a district in Ft. Lauderdale would make them to close together, plus the 13th largest school district in the United States only has 4 teams and that is sad)

Tampa (Another largely populated area with many teams)

Tallahassee (My shot in the dark for a northern Florida district due to a lack of teams North of Ocala, Jacksonville may work better but I was trying to put another district on the west side of Florida)

Then Championship would be held in Orlando at either the UCF Arena or Orange County Convention Center
(Attached is a map of the state with the location of each team and a black x for the districts)

Other Areas to include:
I feel we would include Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic in our district if they would like.

Feasibility

It is not feasible right now but I think once we reach 90 or so teams we could do it but we don't even have enough teams to fill up the two regionals we have now but, with current growth we might have Florida District by 2015/16

Re: District Feasibility/Potential
 

I think it would be better to wait till like 150 teams and have 10 districts(2 per week with one "week off" or 2 weeks with only one district) and a FSC. You could do: Miami, Tampa, Jacksonville, Melbourne, Boca Raton, Tallahassee, Orlando, Gainesville/Ocala, Fort Lauderdale and Daytona. That would be 3 in North Florida, 3 in South Florida, and 4 in Central Florida; then you would have the FSC in the UCF Arena or OCCC or Amway Arena.

I personally would prefer the UCF Arena because its tradition, perfect setting, perfect size, and you know what you get at UCF. OCCC would be weird because its a convention center only and it would be entirely bleacher seating. I dont know about the entire size of the Amway Arena(where the Orlando magic and Orlando Predators play) to know if it could fit 60-70 teams and pits. I think this could possibly happen closer to the year 2020 but maybe a little earlier around 2017-2018.

Re: District Feasibility/Potential
 

The thought of 10 events in a state that seems barely able to muster enough volunteers for 2 regionals is exhausting to me. People don't seem to understand one of the big issues with districts is mustering enough volunteers to staff the events.

Re: District Feasibility/Potential
 

Thats because you are thinking about 10 events off the knowledge of volunteer availability now. In 6-7 years and around 2x the number of teams, I could easily see enough people to run 10 districts.

Re: District Feasibility/Potential
 

And you don't need as many volunteers for a district event as you do for a regional.

Re: District Feasibility/Potential
 

Georgia

Let me go ahead and say that with 49 times, a district model is no where close to being sustainable in GA. So I'll leave this here.

Other Areas to include: South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama

We could join with the states above.

Now, this is interesting because one could potentially picture a region here, especially since it tends to get a little crowded with 177 teams shared between the five states.

However, these states are already positioned like districts. GA, SC, NC, and TN already have regionals, with AL planning one, and word out there is that GA might pick up a second regional.

Additionally, it's about a 4-6 hour drive to anywhere suitable from the middle of the region (northern GA).

Feasibility

Taking all that together, the southeastern region isn't very region friendly.

However, I think it would be interesting to take the region in its current state and transform it into a regional. Essentially all the regionals in GA, SC, NC, TN, and AL get turned into large district events.

At the very least, it might even interesting to see if the GA, SC, NC, TN, and AL regionals would lock out teams not from their region. This would give local teams priority if they want to compete, and give it a district-esque feeling.

- Sunny G.

Re: District Feasibility/Potential
 

Let's break down the positions:

Judges - still need a full complement
Inspectors - same number
Refs - Same
Field Reset - Same
Queuers - Same
Misc Crowd Control - Same



So, what positions don't we need?

Re: District Feasibility/Potential
 

You need the same # of inspectors for 35-40 teams as you do for 60-65? And isnt querers like only 2-4 people?(not including the admin desk people)

Give me your estimate of what it would take to run 2 districts; volunteer # wise.

Re: District Feasibility/Potential
 

Regionals give you a full day to inspect all the teams. Districts substantially less. And, given that many of the teams in Florida have had me rebuilding their robots late into Friday...

These are the numbers Rich Sisk and I worked up to see how big FiM would have to be for every school district in Michigan to have a team. This was done in 2010 but the core part is still the same. (Spoiler, it gets ridiculous)

It takes 6 inspectors per event.

It takes 1 head ref, 1 LRI, 1 FTA, and 1 Judge Coordinator per event.

It takes 20-25 Judges per event. (This number cannot be reduced substantially without drastically reducing quality of judging)

It takes between 4 and 6 refs

I don't have solid numbers for queuers or pit staff, nor did I include the 2 scorekeepers, the various AV folks... and I'm fairly certain I'm forgetting some group. So, let's assume somewhere north of 60 people per event.

Re: District Feasibility/Potential
 

According to this http://www.midatlanticrobotics.com/b...3-june-3-2013/ MAR had around 400 volunteers in 2013 for its seven events. That's about 57 volunteers per event. However, many volunteers go to multiple events. So the real number is probably much higher.

Even with 400 people some MAR events were really struggling for volunteers. TCNJ only had about 3 inspectors and was running pretty late because of it. They got a scorekeeper only a week or two before the event.

You need a lot of volunteers to run districts.

Re: District Feasibility/Potential
 

As I understood it, the volunteer issue was one the reason Texas hasn't gone district, yet. (and geography.)

Re: District Feasibility/Potential
 

Volunteers are also what is stopping Minnesota

Re: District Feasibility/Potential
 

So it sounds like volunteers are a real issue for regions switching to districts.

What are some ways FiM and MAR have solved this?

What are PNW and NE doing to solve this issue?

Should teams for multiple areas be taking this on as an issue to find a solution with their local Volunteer Coordinator?

Re: District Feasibility/Potential
 

Good food and free t-shirts. ;) Teams are supposed to supply 2 volunteers; sometimes college alumni are good for this. There's also been quite a few off-seasons up here* even before districts, which helps keep people engaged. 1640 alone has volunteer(s) for at least: Monty Madness, MidKnight Mayhem, girlPOWER, Duel on the Delaware, Brunswick Eruption and Ramp Riot, plus Battle 'o Baltimore (MD) and Lewis Blitz (NY).

But in all honesty, a good part of the reason FiM and MAR were the first to transition was because we had strong volunteer bases. If we're taxing bases this size, I don't envy regions that self-classify as having a small volunteer base.


*It's interesting, MAR has 5 off-seasons in like 35K mi² (NJ+DE+.5PA): by my reckoning the highest in the world. NE is 2nd with 6 in 72K; PNW is 3 in 170K. You can actually see their "bubbles" on the calendar:
ME: SPIRIT
NH: Merrimack, Rage
MA: MSHSL, Beantown
CT: Wolcott
NY: Ruckus, Lewis
PA: girlPOWER, Riot
NJ: Monty, MidKnight, Brunswick <<I think only MN has more, and it's 10x the size (albeit 3.5M fewer people)
MD: BoB
VA: Rumble
NC: THOR
SC: SCRIW
FL: Panther
LA: Stick
TX: Roundup, reMix
AR: Ozark
MO: Cow Town
IL: River
IN: Champs, IRI
OH: Connect
MI: MARC
MN: Detroit, Invt'l, Rendezvous, Champs
OR: Seattle, Generation, Rollout
CA: CalGames, Classic
Aust: DDU

Re: District Feasibility/Potential
 

Florida has more than the Panther Prowl; I believe there are a few down south. And Florida also has a few pre-season events.

Re: District Feasibility/Potential
 

What other events are there?

Re: District Feasibility/Potential
 

To run Beantown Blitz (a 1 day off-season event with ~40 teams) we pull in 55-60 volunteers. This does not include personnel like safety advisors, inspectors or a the full gambit of judges (we use a smaller staff of 10-12 for our 1 day event).

A volunteer staff for a district event is not all that different from a regional staff. In fact, the reason Beantown needs so many volunteers is that we are running many aspects that are often 'venue-handled' at a regional (concession stands, security, parking, facilities, etc). This is a very important aspect to consider as well.

-Brando

Re: District Feasibility/Potential
 

I dont remember the names but 1251 hosts(might be hosted) one and so does(might be did) 179.

Re: District Feasibility/Potential
 

I was doing the math on it earlier, and that's on the low end of what I was figuring for a regional. Replace your concession, parking, facilities, and possibly security people with inspectors and enough judges to make up a full complement, come out about even. Maybe a couple of other folks.

I then figured that about half of those would return if the second district was close enough, and guesstimated about 90-100 individual volunteers for 2 district events.

Fall Classic (1 day, 20 or so teams) pulled 15-20 volunteers or so (not counting concessions and facility staff) to run the event, and that many again for both setup and teardown. 45 people total, with about 5-10 doing setup, teardown, and the event in between, over a day and an evening. (Last year's numbers, BTW, off the top of my head, give or take a fudge factor of 5 in any given section of the event).

Re: District Feasibility/Potential
 

Don't forget Madtown Throwdown and Powerhouse Pwnage! There might be one other I'm forgetting too.

Re: District Feasibility/Potential
 

Mission mayhem used to be an event in South Florida hosted by (if memory serves) 1345 and 108 (not sure if 1251 was involved or not as that dissolved after my freshman year of high school). I am aware of a scrimmage day that 179 has hosted in the past, not sure if that's happening still, but from my understanding it was very far from an event. More like a day to shake out the robots at the end of build. Tempest N' Tampa also used to be a great event. There was also the Robot Rodeo (a mini off-season) in Orlando, again, I'm not sure if this still exists. I also heard rumor of something brewing in Tampa for this year, but nothing more than rumor.

I would love for 744 to host an off-season in Ft. Lauderdale. Mr. Stolley's over worked as it is though, but I think we could do it eventually.

Re: District Feasibility/Potential
 

I can't find anything about 179 hosting an offseason. But I did find that 1251 used to host Mission Mayhem. It was canceled in 2012 because of lack of teams.

So it looks like in 2013 there is only one off-season event in Florida.
Looking at Panther Prowl, it doesn't seem to be as large as the offseason events in MAR. It only had 21 teams last year. Here Brunswick Eruption, Ramp Riot and Monty Madness are always full with around 40 teams and have waitlists to get in.

I wonder if the districts led to more offseason events or if the offseasons came first? I know that Midknight is new in MAR this year, and I'm not sure when girlPower started. So that's 3-4 offseasons in MAR before districts. Does anyone have info about Michigan's offseasons in 2008?

Re: District Feasibility/Potential
 

6! Don't forget about Duel on the Delaware, in Carney's Point, NJ!

Re: District Feasibility/Potential
 

This is a pretty incomplete list. Here in NE we have 8 by my count: Battlecry, Beantown Blitz, WIWI, Conneticut State Champs, Bash at the Beach, Mainly Spirit, River Rage, Mayhem in Merrimack.

I think it can be said that New England will be coming into districts with a fairly strong volunteer base.

Re: District Feasibility/Potential
 

California is missing a couple--as noted, MadTown and Powerhouse, but also the Battle at the Border (San Diego).

Re: District Feasibility/Potential
 

Unless I'm mistaken, the event listed as "Seattle" for Oregon is Girls Generation Seattle, which is held in Washington.

Re: District Feasibility/Potential
 

Also missing a handful from Michigan...

IGVC, Kettering KICKOFF, WMRI... I think I'm missing a few still too.

Re: District Feasibility/Potential
 

Add in Suffield Shakedown as well.

Re: District Feasibility/Potential
 

I'm glad to hear people actually know about us :D

Re: District Feasibility/Potential
 

On the topic of Florida districts:
I agree with James that Florida could feasibly pull off the districts with ~100 teams and districts spread similar to the way he described, on a similar timeline (~2016). I think as far as volunteer bases, it would be a softer transition than going directly to 10 events. Although it would be a slightly harder transition for the teams.

Also, with 150 teams, that means 300 "competing slots" as each team plays twice. At ~40 teams per district, that means only 8 districts to accommodate the number of teams suggested for transition.

If I were to organize Florida districts/championship, I would do almost exactly what James did, but instead, I would move the Tallahassee district to Gainesville. Our panhandle is similar to Michigan's upper peninsula, I don't think the five teams up there warrant a whole district event, especially since three of them didn't even opt to compete in Florida this past year, but rather competed at the Bayou regional. Although, I would like to see that area grow when the district transition happens, so that eventually a district can form up there. I like the Championship in Orlando, I don't know about the venue.

I still don't know what to do with our friends from the DR... those teams are so close to Florida and have roots in Florida FRC. I would hate to exclude them, but I just wouldn't know how to fit them into a district system without more teams (~30 on the island).

Also, since all of this is speculation, does anyone know what, if any, talk there has been in FloridaFIRST leadership in regards to districts?

Re: District Feasibility/Potential
 

MidKnight is new, but girlPower is in its 4th year now. Further, there were BR^2 and PARC before districts--it's more of a shuffle than an increase. MAR was a very high off-season area well before districts. Michigan is an anomaly for me; it may just be the calendar, but it seems very low.



I didn't assemble the list--it's basically just FIRST's calendar. I know it's missing events, (including Duel on the Delaware, that we're actually competing at).

Re: District Feasibility/Potential
 

And 151's Week Zero event they have held the past 3 years.

Re: District Feasibility/Potential
 

Regarding timelines, here is the growth in FL FIRST teams since 1999. We will, assuming growth continues, hit 100 by 2017. (I used the average growth since 1999 since I couldn't find a trendline that made any sense).


I'd be more interested in seeing the amount of churn in teams. I've got the data to compute that I just haven't gotten around to it yet. Maybe tonight.

Re: District Feasibility/Potential
 

Churn in teams? Like team size?

Re: District Feasibility/Potential
 

I think he means, how many are lost and gained each year? But I say that reluctantly.

The growth chart is interesting... it's kind of all over the place.

Again, does anyone know what official talks have been had about Florida's future with districts, if any?

Re: District Feasibility/Potential
 

Of the states with a pretty good number of teams, I think Florida would be the last to go into the district system.

Re: District Feasibility/Potential
 

At MAR, on the first day (after school/evening) we need to feed 65 volunteers. On days two and three (the full days) we need to feed 100 - 110 volunteers. We need the same number of volunteers for a district event as for the region championship event. We simply have people volunteering at multiple events; thank goodness for the amazing MAR volunteers.

The big problem came in 2012 when we went to districts. We had enough volunteers, but we impacted NYC Regional significantly. The individuals that volunteered at NYC as their second regional ended up volunteering at MAR districts and we basically stole a decent portion of their volunteer base. This didn't happen on purpose, and we didn't realize how many individuals volunteered at NYC from MAR until the month before NYC when they were still looking for a large group of volunteers.

Re: District Feasibility/Potential
 

I mean how many of the teams are new each year. If we have 26 teams one year, 36 the next you'd naively assume that there were 10 rookies. Sadly, it's not. There's a lot of things more important to sustainable growth than looking solely at team numbers. Basically, that plot is a horribly bad way to look at growth and feasibility. I'll try to write up more of my thoughts when I'm not working.


And yeah, that was the point... that growth is all over.

Re: District Feasibility/Potential
 

It's no coincidence that the areas that have moved over to districts and have concrete plans to evolve into the system are not only the oldest and most dense areas, but also areas that train major key volunteers that ship out to other regionals across the country and are integral to championships, and the areas with districts are anchored by their multiple HoF inductees.

Those of us who imagine a utopia where one could open the proverbial floodgates and let a low cost, high match-volume structure cover the earth and unleash a bountiful harvest of successful teams gloss over the fact we need the seeds of volunteers to grow the programs.

Re: District Feasibility/Potential
 

You mean like Koko Ed? That guy must have several clones...

On the topic of Florida Districts: Waiting for 150 teams is a bad idea, it just hurts when you try to do it with such a large mass.

I think FL is close to being ready; if planning starts now, 2015 seems reasonable. Trust me, although you may have a few nay-sayers, that disappears once the first District season has passed. The advantages far outweigh the disadvantages.

Just remember to be as transparent and inclusive as you can.

Re: District Feasibility/Potential
 

Oh wow, I didnt realize that MAR has only had 5 and 6 districts these last 2 years. For some reason I thought it was closer to 10. That does make it seem a little bit more feasible earlier on, but the team density of Florida vs MAR does seem quite a bit larger.

Re: District Feasibility/Potential
 

I remember giving Don this exact same advice in 2011 at the Championship...

I was pretty freaked out in 2009. One of the neat things about doing more events are there are more volunteering opportunities. It is always a challenge to get all the folks you need, but I don't know too many FIRSTers that step down from a challenge.

Re: District Feasibility/Potential
 

I'm pretty sure he worked like 12 official events this year.

Re: District Feasibility/Potential
 

As Boe said, the main thing stopping MN from adopting a Districts model is volunteers-- but it is being seriously considered and steps are being taken to increase the number of active volunteers. Talking with Laurie Shimizu (the regional coordinator up here, otherwise known as dragon-lady), they're making a push to get 3-5 previously uninvolved volunteers from each team by next season. If they can pull off even a fraction of that over the 2014 and 2015 seasons, Minnesota will probably be able to feasibly run a districts model in the 2015 or 2016 season (at least that's the estimate I've been hearing; frankly I'm just a student observer in these sorts of discussions, so I can't comment on how accurate that is).

Also, off-note, Minnesota also has the Minne-Mini-Regional competition, which is hosted typically by 2169 every year in collaboration with a broad assortment of teams (we provided staff and the field for a few years, but moved on to helping with River Rendezvous and Detroit Lakes). I've also heard tell of something coming together with 2512 and 1816, but I haven't seen much out of that.

I'd love to see Minnesota districts, but it won't happen in my time as a student...

Re: District Feasibility/Potential
 

Payne you kind of touched on something that most people don't realize about districts: Volunteers in key roles are what is needed most. Your FTA's, Head Refs, Field supervisors, etc. are what is really the limiting factor to do districts. Here in Michigan these folks are not just doing one, two or even three events; they are at an event every single week of competition season, maybe having one week off... If nothing goes wrong. The worst part about this "glitch" is that training a key role volunteer takes time and effort. They are not the types of positions that can be filled by just anyone. These almost have to be seasoned FIRSTers that are groomed over a few seasons for the positions. There is a group of I'm going to guess and say 20 or so folks (don't quote me, its an estimate) that travel the state of Michigan and are volunteering almost every single week in some regard or another, often key positions. Michigan's district system is only possible because these folks effectively put their lives on hold for 7 weeks, on top of supporting their own teams. You can fill positions like field reset and queuing with random students and parents, but if you think that you can fill even one "key position" with them then your event will grind to a halt before it even starts.

Also when you guys throw out numbers on team density for Michigan, you might as well lop off the UP. (I hate to say this because I go to school up there) The UP pretty much breaks the district model, it is just to far for to few teams to travel and be worth it. If you are looking for an example of what to do, don't base it off something that is broken, you basically are shooting yourself in the foot before a marathon.

Re: District Feasibility/Potential
 

Re-quoted for truth.

If you ASK folks to volunteer, especially alumni and even team members (at events the team isn't competing perhaps) people seem to step up. I found that many team members were "too shy" to volunteer but, when asked, are happy to do so and start doing it year after year.

Re: District Feasibility/Potential
 

For reference, in 2015 Florida will likely need between 5 and 6 districts based on my predicted growth. Placement of these would, logically, be done based off of team density in area. For reference, this year we would have needed 4 districts. Our Championship would, likely, be held at UCF but would more logically be in south Florida. However, to maintain parity with FiM's Championship on percentage of teams attending it would be (65/213) * 76 = 24 teams... Let's just say 40 teams to be safe... this means it could be held ANYWHERE a district could be held.

As for Florida vs MAR density, MAR is not as large a region as you'd think and they have as many teams as Florida. (source: I've spent a fair bit of time in those areas...also, a map)

Districts in a region is easily computed as CEILING((Teams * 2)/40).

Re: District Feasibility/Potential
 

How do you figure it would be in South Florida when the bigger amount of teams are in Central Florida?

Re: District Feasibility/Potential
 

Last map I saw seemed to have a high density along the south east side of the state. Lemme check again.

Edit:
These are what I was looking at. 2013 FRC teams.
http://d.pr/i/VFfs
http://d.pr/i/6eAj

Re: District Feasibility/Potential
 

Going off the OP's picture, there are 36 in Central Florida vs 23 in South Florida.

Re: District Feasibility/Potential
 

Define Central Florida. If you are counting the entire central corridor you're right. But that'd be silly as it's a much larger area. Of course, nothing looks like SE Michigan, New England, or MAR.

Re: District Feasibility/Potential
 

CF: Daytona Beach straight across through Ocala down to Sarasota across to Vero Beach.

SF: Below that line through Sarasota across to Vero Beach.

And why would it be silly to consider the central part of Florida as Central Florida?

Re: District Feasibility/Potential
 

Maybe for the reasons I WROTE? I was looking for the optimal location to place a state championship based on number of teams who could comfortably commute to it. As someone who has repeatedly done he Brandon -> Orlando commute that is BARELY reasonable to do round trip in a day. From Sarasota to Orlando... ha no thanks.

Re: District Feasibility/Potential
 

1 hour drives are comfortably close. Take away the Central Florida teams with longer than 1 hour drives and you still have 28-30. Thats still more than the total considered in South Florida total; and then you can take out 2-4 teams on the OP's picture that are on the west coast of South Florida. When I was a student on 1592, we drove over from Cocoa and drove home everyday; that was an hour both ways if the traffic was good.

And just saying this as well, I was a mentor on the team the first year the South Florida regional happened and when we saw how expensive hotels in South Florida were, we had to stay like almost an hour away just to keep the hotel costs reasonable. You can find cheaper ones in Orlando(than Miami/Boca Raton/Ft. Lauderdale) and even cheaper ones within 25-30 minutes of Orlando.

Re: District Feasibility/Potential
 

I didn't find the hotels much worse than DC... But that's also an important factor that I couldn't determine at first glance. I'd have to run a few searches.

And, without traffic and doing my usual speeding Brandon -> Orlando is over an hour. If I'm coming from west of me that means I'm on I4 through the 275 junction which takes 20 minutes on the best of days... I'm not seeing your point.

Re: District Feasibility/Potential
 

On a "build it and they will come" theme ...

In Michigan we have only 1 head ref who also was a head ref for the old regionals. The rest of us stepped up over the past 5 years to fill the positions.

We also have many more referees than we had in the past. And now some of them are wondering what it will take to become head refs - the answer basically being, more districts! We had 7 head refs last season to work 11 district events; one of them ended up not being a head ref at all due to an assigning mixup.

I think I saw a different LRI at each of the 3 district events I worked this year.

Where we do overwork the volunteers is the FTA position. We are fortunate to have a very dedicated crew of FTA's and FFTA's who end up working every or almost every week. But they love it!

Re: District Feasibility/Potential
 

Ohio is also having a state championship this year hosted by 3266 and 1038.

And I believe 1038 has a week zero event that they just started last season.

Re: District Feasibility/Potential
 

From what I have seen in MAR, the hardest volunteer position to fill at new district events is judges. Judges are (ideally) not associated with a team but typically come from academia and industry in the local community. And persuading someone to possibly take a day off work to judge at a new event, for a program they may never have heard of before, is difficult. Once an event is established in the community, and hopefully got publicity, you start to build a judge base.

Re: District Feasibility/Potential
 

Don't several MAR events run Saturday-Sunday? Scheduling an event that way takes up the whole weekend but would prevent judges from missing a day of work. Are more district events not scheduled that way because it would interfere with church or venue availability on Sundays?

Re: District Feasibility/Potential
 

I believe the main reason for Saturday-Sunday so as not to interfere with the school day. This way the only time there is a massive entrance of people is Friday afternoon load-in, and so that there aren't hundreds of people coming and going during the school day.

Re: District Feasibility/Potential
 

It is a lot easier to get a school to schedule a S-S event, but ignoring that for now, there are pros and cons to the Fri-Sat and Sat-Sun schedules**. A S-S event means you typically don't have to miss school or work, but you also don't have a rest day afterwards. Which means, especially for event organizers and volunteers, Monday mornings are hard - you're tired. Break down and clean-up can run to midnight. F-S events mean you may have to miss a day of school or work, but you have Sunday to catch up on sleep, homework, etc. Especially for teams who travel several hours to the event.

Team surveys have shown that people in MAR are evenly split on which schedule they prefer.

** I'm leaving out the setup day in this discussion, which includes the evening uncrate and practice. Not all teams can make it the evening before.

Re: District Feasibility/Potential
 

There are definitely benefits to both systems. I personally would prefer (both as a mentor now and back when I was a student) the F-S model because there is a day to re-charge before plowing into a full week of work/school.

The S-S model sounds like it will be easier to book and staff as it doesn't interfere with work/school.

I hope as more areas move to districts events are scheduled to allow teams a choice between which events fit their needs best.